


In Shining Pathways, To a Shining End

by Gileonnen



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Breaking and Entering as Sign of Affection, Deliberately Vague Relationship to Canon Timeline, Fond insults, Kissing Osiris's Reflections, Loneliness in Extroverted Exos, Long-Awaited Confessions of Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27673573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: "I miss you," says Saint. With his optical receptors shuttered, he can almost feel the words straining across millions of kilometers of empty space--the long, raw cold between Earth and wherever Osiris's research has taken him.
Relationships: Osiris/Saint-14 (Destiny)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 167





	In Shining Pathways, To a Shining End

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Marion Strobel's '[The Silence Stirs Again](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=19&issue=6&page=12).'

When new-made Guardians crowd him, putting down glimmer for Trials rings and asking for tales of Six Fronts, Saint-14 has no time to be lonely. They need him to be their counsel and their courage, to urge them to rise again after every fall; more than armor or even glory, they need someone to remind them that they're worthy.

Even on quiet evenings, there is much to do. Saint wanders the city, joining children's pick-up soccer games and helping old women defuse live Red Legion mines in community gardens. He scatters seed for the pigeons in shattered plazas and listens to young Cryptarchs having breakdowns over their exams; he sits on a bench before any one of a dozen memorials, and he lets those who sit with him talk about those they've lost.

Both citizen and Guardian make space for him in their lives. Eva Levante bakes him Dawning cookies, and seems delighted when he delivers her a ribbon-wrapped package of poppy hamantashen a few months later. There are semi-legal Sparrow races in condemned zones of the City, raucous arguments between Amanda Holliday and Marcus Ren that leave Saint and Enoch Bast holding the two of them under the arms like quarreling kittens to keep them apart. Saint tries a dozen new Sparrow mods and learns what three new kinds of explosion feel like.

Old friends catch up. He and Ana refit a derelict ship they find crashed into a Schnell warehouse, and she lets him paint a purple racing stripe down the middle of the hull. Ikora takes him to Cayde-6's favorite ramen shop, where the broth is so spicy that it brings tears to her eyes that have nothing to do with grief.

He's happy, or as happy as anyone can be in the looming shadow of the Darkness. Sometimes he thinks that Osiris must have brought him back for this: so that he could be a part of the bustling life of the City, as Osiris no longer could.

In the late hours, though, when the City's murmur quiets and the light of the Traveler spills through his window, Saint finds that loneliness is waiting for him.

He can explain Osiris's absence a thousand ways. Stubborn pride; distraction; a conviction that he can only share the world with Saint once his work in it is finished. Fear of losing what he has given everything to regain. Fear of making a confession that is anything less than perfect, as though the wrong words would turn Saint's fondness to contempt.

No part of Saint doubts that Osiris loves him. He knows it the way he knows the heat of Light within his breast, the flow of electrical impulses through his wiring, the urgent ache of love returned in every fiber of his body.

In the darkness, he traces his thumb over the curves of Geppetto's shell. She nestles against the hollow of his hand, just heavy enough to ease the empty feeling. "Do you want me to open a comm line?" she asks.

He laughs and closes his palm around her. "You know me too well, Geppetto."

"I know it's been a long time since he responded to one of your messages."

"It's all he understands: he runs, I follow."

"Would you know what to do if you caught him?"

Saint rolls over onto his back on the bed. He dims his gaze, shifting focus to the sensors in his hands, his throat, the pit of his abdomen. For a moment, he lets himself imagine Osiris curled up at his side, his hand folded in Saint's hand, his face resting against Saint's chest. The living warmth of him; the heat of his breath gusting over synthetic muscle.

It would be enough, he thinks, to wake to an empty bed still warm where Osiris had lain.

He lets Geppetto go and hears the faint shimmer of her shell decompiling. "Open the comm line. Let me bother the old man again."

The silence of his room takes on a listening quality. For a moment, the pressure of that silence overwhelms him--so much has gone unsaid between him and Osiris over the centuries, and those silences lie beneath this one like fathomless ocean depths.

There is no one perfect thing that he could say that would answer for all of those years of waiting. Better to say a thousand imperfect things than to let the silence stretch a moment longer.

"I miss you," says Saint. With his optical receptors shuttered, he can almost feel the words straining across millions of kilometers of empty space--the long, raw cold between Earth and wherever Osiris's research has taken him. He must believe that, somewhere in the infinite darkness, Osiris is listening. "Did you bring me back just for that? Did you put me on the Earth again to make me wait for you?" He laughs, just a huff of sound echoing down the comms. "Big-headed fool. I am done with waiting for you to find the right words or the right time."

On the other end of the line, there is a faint rustle of breath. It sends a thrill of hope down the long wires of his nerves.

"I have loved you since before you were exiled. Since before you were Vanguard," says Saint. He finds himself curling on his side on the bed, as though to make a space for Osiris there. "I have loved you when we fought. When you made me keep your secrets. When you left my messages unread for months. In the Infinite Forest, fighting through Vex for years, I loved you even when I cursed your name. Do you think I would not love you, now that we have a chance to start again?"

Osiris's breath has gone shallow, sharp. The quiet stretches between them. In the long lacuna between question and answer, sharp-edged doubt steals in, its blade far keener than the dull ache of loneliness.

Saint has known for untold years that Osiris loves him. But he has known many things that have proven to be untrue.

"I can hear you listening," Saint says. "Perhaps I have ... misjudged. Or perhaps you are still searching for words. Answer me this: do you love me, Osiris?"

A warmth like the glow of a lamp falls upon his face, and Saint's eyes light in answer. The room fades into focus around him. The ceiling, soft cream eggshell paint; the shotgun disassembled on the dresser; the golden figure kneeling beside Saint's bed.

Saint holds out his hand, palm up. Osiris's reflection looks down at it as though unable to believe that it will bear his weight--then, slowly and with great care, he lays his hand in Saint's.

It weighs nothing at all, but the warmth of it fills Saint up all the same.

Osiris is a static-edged whisper against Saint's ear. "Yes," he says, and his voice is strained and wretched. "Of course I love you."

"Then put your work aside and come here," Saint answers, looking up into the reflection's luminous eyes. "Let me take you in my arms. Let me hold you."

The brows of Osiris's reflection crease in pain or sorrow. "It's not so simple as that--" he begins.

"It is," says Saint, with a fierceness that surprises him. "You are not alone. _We_ are not alone. Why do we have a Vanguard, if only the Great Osiris can decide what is right? Why do we have Guardians, if only the Great Osiris can make war on the Vex or the Darkness? Why do we have Cryptarchs, and Warlocks, and engineers, if only the Great Osiris can find the truth and build weapons to face it? Do you think I have done nothing on Earth but be a sportscaster for your Trials? No, my bird--no. I have been among the people. I have seen their strength. And together they have a strength greater than yours."

The reflection looks down again at their joined hands. "That's your argument, is it? I should come home, because I'm too weak to do what must be done alone."

"No." Saint sits up, then rises to frame the reflection's face in his hands. When he stands this close, the radiant warmth of it seeps into every fiber and filament of him. "You should come home because I love you and I miss you."

When the reflection turns its gaze up to meet Saint's, he meets the unblinking fire in those eyes--and deep within the blaze, he imagines that he sees Osiris's dark eyes looking back at him.

He leans down to steal a slow and yearning kiss, mouth pressed to the golden-edged phantom of Osiris's lips, and Osiris makes a soft sound of want that echoes through Saint like a blow.

"Stay," Saint whispers at the end of the kiss. "Let me fall asleep beside your reflection, if you will not come back to me."

Osiris hesitates. Again, Saint hears the soft sough of his breath. "Lie down," he says at last.

Saint settles himself on the bed again, pulling the sheet and the knit comforter up to his waist. In the darkness, the reflection is a candle flame. It sits on the edge of the bed, gazing down at Saint with an expression that's as much fear as fondness.

Saint reaches out again for its hand, and although they cannot touch, the reflection lets itself be drawn into bed all the same.

Saint dips his head until their brows are close. Their bodies make a pair of parentheses, one bright and one dark.

"I love you," he says again, just for the relief of saying it.

He can almost hear Osiris's smile. "And I, you."

* * *

The watery light of dawn filters through Saint's window, and he wakes to it.

A warm hand is splayed across his chest; a warm, beard-rough cheek is tucked against his shoulder. In the dimness of early morning, Saint reaches out to pull Osiris close and finds him solid and heavy beneath his hand.

"You broke into my room," Saint mumbles, shifting so that he can get an arm around Osiris's waist.

"You said you missed me," Osiris answers, and tucks his head beneath Saint's chin. "Should I leave?"

"Stay," says Saint. His heart is so full that he fears it will shatter. "My dear friend--I have so much to show you."


End file.
